Penn State football bowl projections: Where are the Lions slotted after a 3-0 start?
Penn State is off to a perfect start in 2022. The Lions opened the season with two road wins, one at Purdue and another at Auburn, in addition to a home triumph over Ohio.
The Associated Press and USA Today Coaches Poll both rank head coach James Franklin’s both consider the program top-15 worthy. It is No. 14 in the former and No. 15 in the latter. At ESPN, Bill Connelly ranks Penn State as the eighth-best undefeated team in all of college football. That outlet has PSU at ninth in Connelly’s SP+ and No. 10 in its Football Power Index (FPI).
“They were ready from the start. Going by SP+ rankings, James Franklin’s Nittany Lions have already played two of their three most difficult road games of the season,” Connelly writes. “They won ’em both, first outlasting Purdue in Week 1, then grinding Auburn into dust on Saturday. Manny Diaz’s defense has been as good as advertised, and if the run game keeps showing up the way it did Saturday — 245 rushing yards, 6.3 per carry — this is a potential top-five team.
“PSU went just 11-11 in 2020-21, but the Nittany Lions aren’t far removed from a run of three 11-win seasons in four years, and their talent level is as high as ever. That trip to Michigan on Oct. 15 could be utterly enormous.”
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All of this leads to this: Excitement is building about the Nittany Lions’ outlook in 2022. A team that was outside the top-25 to start the year is now creeping toward the top-10. It goes without saying, then, that Penn State has seen its bowl game projections get better with each passing win. And, while these will change greatly throughout the year, they are fun to track week-to-week. So, with that in mind, here’s where things stand nationally ahead of a Week 4 Noon tilt with Central Michigan.
Penn State bowl projections after Week 3
Here is the rundown:
Brett McMurphy of The Action Network: Penn State vs. USC in the Rose Bowl
Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach of ESPN: PSU vs. Clemson in the Capital One Bowl
Jerry Palm, CBS Sports: Penn State vs. Clemson in the Orange Bowl
Richard Johnson, SI: PSU vs. Tulane in the Cotton Bowl
Bill Bender, Sporting News: Penn State vs. USC in the Rose Bowl
College Football News: PSU vs. Clemson in the Orange Bowl
Where will the Lions end up?
This section becomes fun to put together later in the year as the guessing gets easier. Right now, though, it’s more than a total shot in the dark. That said, based on three weeks, Penn State appears to be further ahead than expected while some of its future opponents don’t look as good as we thought they would be. Thus, the New Year’s Six projections are not only fair but also a strong possibility at this point in time.
